The Black Scorpion (1957)

[jshaide]

Goddamnit. I was fully certain this would not get a bump so I bought the MOD DVD last summer (something I basically said I would never do).

[RalphoR]

We all thank you for taking one for the team

[kamphausd1]

I've never seen this but from what I've heard it's one of the better movies to have been featured on Mystery Science Theater.

[iamnoone]

The plot and characters in this one has always been pretty dull, but the stop-motion and effects sequences make up for it in droves. Stuff of nightmares! Excellente'! Buy it!

[AFILMDUDE]

Preordered!

[Moonlight Shadow]

It's the 4th time I will buy this move and I don't even like it that much.

[jshaide]

Originally Posted by RalphoR

We all thank you for taking one for the team

Hah! I'm actually really shocked. I may try to move the DVD.

Last summer I bought all of the Lon Chaney DVDs they had to offer because I highly doubt they'll come out on Blu-ray (and if they do, they'll come out slow or maybe one or two, etc. . .) and I was looking at SCORPION and I kinda was like "yeeeaaaah, ok. . . It ain't gonna make the bump". How wrong I was. . .

[Automaton-X]

Yessssss! Day one!

[Partyslammer]

Originally Posted by heebiejeebie

I've never actually seen this movie, but supposedly the spider in this is the same one used in King Kong's lost spider pit sequence.

That is correct and it's brief appearance in this movie is one of the creepier sequences in the film. It's thought that the weird worm-scorpion that gets killed and eaten by another scorpion in the cave sequence is another re-used model from the King Kong spider pit scene.

The first time I saw this movie was around 1970 on late night broadcast tv and for this sort of old school 50's giant bug movie to actually depict the monsters brutally killing and more or less eating people was pretty unsettling (even if the "people" were tiny bendable buddies!).

The only real downside to the otherwise excellent stop motion effects is that many scenes are re-used multiple times to pad out spfx scenes, even some shots are horizontally flipped so the viewer is less likely to notice. That, and due to the budget running out, many of the shots of the big daddy scorpion in the finale are actually black cut-out mattes that Willis O'Brien didn't have the time or money to comp in the actual "Black Scorpion" model.

Regarding this release, I'm glad they are porting all the extras from the old DVD release and the later Warner Archives DVD-R widescreen upgrade from a few years back. They'll likely be in standard definition but I'm not going to get worked up over that. Turner has been occasionally showing the HD upgrade the past couple years and it looks very good.

I guess this puts the kibosh on a 2nd Warner Bros "Special Effects Collection" 4 film box for which this film would have been a natural inclusion. That said, I have to think believe "The Giant Behemoth" which has followed a similar path and has been broadcast in HD on Turner the past couple years will get a similar Warner Archives release before the end of 2018.

[babybreese]

Doesn't the scorpion become see - through in a few shots?
Bonus points for Mara Corday, but the human parts of this film are indeed pretty dreary.

[cakefactory]

I'm enough of a stop-motion monster fan that I got the real version of the DVD the day it came out. So, I helped too. It only took like...10 years!

And yeah, there's some see-through compositing here. It was not done with the care of the Harryhausen flicks. It's still quite a showcase compared to the likes of say, The Lost Continent (1951).

[Pulp Hero]

Great news! Although I had been hoping that we would have seen The Black Scorpion released as part of second "Special Effects Collection" set.

[RalphoR]

Me, too but that ship sailed when WAC released The Valley of Gwangi and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth as individual blurays. Look for the fourth potential "special effects" release pretty soon as well: The Giant Behemoth.

[superbura9]

Hot damn, I also bought the DVD mod version thinking this would never ever get a blu-ray release. Now, they transfer all DVD extras. This is a no-brainer for any fan of stop motion flicks. Day 1 .....!


Warner Archives has really been pumping out some top notch creature and monster flicks the last couple of years. It's happy times for all collectors

[EManT2200]

You can no longer order The Black Scorpion blu-ray from Amazon. They have removed the pre-order link and it states "currently unavailable".

[revgen]

It's available for pre-order from Best Buy, Deep Discount, and Bullmoose.

[cultman1]

Creepy classics already have stock!

[RalphoR]

Originally Posted by cultman1

Creepy classics already have stock!

Maybe it's just for preorder? Until someone actually puts it in their cart we won't know for sure. Thanks for the heads up!

[SMOOT]

Originally Posted by cultman1

Creepy classics already have stock!

True. CreepyClassics.com already has the Blu-ray available.

[Greg_M]

During the train wreck scenes, watch for "Lionel"